Musiquarium

February 29 2024

COMBINATION PLATTER

Twentieth Century Fox offers up a mix of Monroe's most famous tunes.

Above: the front and rear sleeves of a 1962 Twentieth Century Fox album featuring the brightest star in Hollywood, Marilyn Monroe, performing musical numbers from three films—River of No Return, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and There’s No Business Like Show Business. Inside you get a “ready to frame” Monroe photo, which is the cover shot unaltered. It’s a nice image indeed. The full list of songs is as follows:

“Heat Wave,” “Lazy,” “After You Get What You Want You Don’t Want It,” “River of No Return,” “One Silver Dollar,” “I’m Going To File My Claim,” “A Little Girl from Little Rock,” (with Eileen Wilson), “When Love Goes Wrong,” (also with Eileen Wilson), “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” and “Bye Bye Baby.”

You can hear most of the tunes by looking around YouTube, if you’re curious.

River of No Return, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, There's No Business Like Show Business, Twentieth Century Fox, Marilyn Monroe

Vintage Pulp

May 14 2015

FROU ROMANCE

Monroe is packed and has a one-way ticket.

This issue of Paris Frou Frou appeared in 1956 with cover star Marilyn Monroe in costume for her role in the classic comedy Bus Stop. Inside the issue she’s garbed for Otto Preminger’s River of No Return, an interesting quasi-western that’s worth a viewing just to see Monroe and her co-star Robert Mitchum together. Elsewhere you get Kim Novak, dancer Vera Bell, and Mamie van Doren. Van Doren and Novak are still with us, and that fact serves to remind that—incredible as it may seem—Monroe would be eighty-nine now if not for her unfortunate suicide (or murder, if you want to go that direction). Considering how long she’s been dead, and how deeply her current-day identity is tied to her death, it’s a bit of a shocking thought. Eleven scans below.

France, Paris Frou Frou, River of No Return, Marilyn Monroe, Kim Novak, Vera Bell, Mamie Van Doren, Otto Preminger, cinema

Vintage Pulp

July 1 2012

SPONGE BABE

Hmm, maybe I should change this wallpaper.

Some well known photographers have contributed to the Goodtime Weekly Calendar, but the above image is by a true icon—Bruno Bernard, aka Bernard of Hollywood. The German-born Bernard possessed a doctorate in criminal psychology and had no formal photographic training, but after leaving Germany in 1937 was operating his own portrait studio within a year. His second studio was on Sunset Boulevard, and that’s where he worked for 25 years, along the way creating such iconic images as Marilyn Monroe’s Niagara and River of No Return promos, Lili St. Cyr’s Indian headdress and transparent bathtub shots, and portraits of virtually every star in mid-century Hollywood. The Goodtime Calendar has several other Bernard contributions, and you’ll see those as the year continues.

As a side note, you may be wondering why we’re showing you this second week of July image a week early. It’s because we’re headed off to Sevilla, Spain tomorrow for a week or so, and we won’t be posting during that time. Well, you never know. Probably we won’t. Depends on what we see. But anyway, we didn’t want our vacation to interrupt our Goodtime Weekly series, so you get this page a week early. You also get the quips a week early:

July 7: “When a man opens the car door for his wife, it’s either a new car or a new wife.”—Larry Attebery

July 8: When a pensive little thing gets married, she often becomes an expensive little thing.

July 9: “A psychiatrist is a man who doesn’t have to worry so long as other people do.”—Pat Buttram

July 10: “A Hollywood guy changes his name once, a dollar bill once in a while, and his girl once she gets wise.”—Joe Hamilton

July 11: A man is incomplete until he marries—then he’s really finished.

July 12: “Science is dandy, but what makes a world’s fair is sex and cotton candy.”—Gracie Hansen

July 13: Small town: a place where there’s no recreation for single folks once the sun goes down.

Update: Turns out the model is named Terry Higgins. We just discovered this in June 2015, but better late than never. At least you know we’re always updating and refining the information on our site.

Germany, Hollywood, Niagara, River of No Return, Goodtime Weekly Calendar, Bruno Bernard, Bernard of Hollywood, Marilyn Monroe, Lili St. Cyr, Larry Attebery, Pat Buttram, Joe Hamilton, Gracie Hansen, Terry Higgins, nudity

Vintage Pulp

December 16 2010

HELLO NORMA JEAN

Not quite the same old song and dance.

Is it possible to get tired of Marilyn Monroe? We doubt it, especially when so many of the images featuring her are so arresting. Here’s a good example—it’s a Japanese promo poster for her 1954 western River of No Return, a Cinemascope production with Robert Mitchum at her side and Otto Preminger behind the lens. Unfortunately, Monroe and Preminger didn’t hit it off and the movie may have suffered a bit as a result, but it remains a solid effort and even if the story doesn’t rouse you, the Canadian scenery and Monroe’s saloon-singer costumes will. We should issue one warning though—the poster conveys a light-hearted mood, but the film is actually a straight adventure-drama. Still, anything with Monroe or Mitchum is worth a look. Incidentally, we saw this poster for sale at a couple of different websites, but be forewarned before you spend your hard-earned coin that the legit vintage version is double-sided. We’ve posted the reverse below.

Japan, Canada, River of No Return, Otto Preminger, Marilyn Monroe, Robert Mitchum, poster art, cinema

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

October 4

1957—Sputnik Circles Earth

The Soviet Union launches the satellite Sputnik I, which becomes the first artificial object to orbit the Earth. It orbits for two months and provides valuable information about the density of the upper atmosphere. It also panics the United States into a space race that eventually culminates in the U.S. moon landing.

October 4

1970—Janis Joplin Overdoses

American blues singer Janis Joplin is found dead on the floor of her motel room in Los Angeles. The cause of death is determined to be an overdose of heroin, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol.

October 3

1908—Pravda Founded

The newspaper Pravda is founded by Leon Trotsky, Adolph Joffe, Matvey Skobelev and other Russian exiles living in Vienna. The name means “truth” and the paper serves as an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991.

October 3

1957—Ferlinghetti Wins Obscenity Case

An obscenity trial brought against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, owner of the counterculture City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, reaches its conclusion when Judge Clayton Horn rules that Allen Ginsberg’s poetry collection Howl is not obscene.

October 3

1995—Simpson Acquitted

After a long trial watched by millions of people worldwide, former football star O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. Simpson subsequently loses a civil suit and is ordered to pay millions in damages.

October 2

1919—Wilson Suffers Stroke

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed. He is confined to bed for weeks, but eventually resumes his duties, though his participation is little more than perfunctory. Wilson remains disabled throughout the remainder of his term in office, and the rest of his life.

October 2

1968—Massacre in Mexico

Ten days before the opening of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, a peaceful student demonstration ends in the Tlatelolco Massacre. 200 to 300 students are gunned down, and to this day there is no consensus about how or why the shooting began.